The children in the neighborhood come here
whenever it rains. They shed their sandals, slippers

at the front-stoop and enter to find their host
sprawled out on the couch, awaiting the rinsing

ritual at the hands of the women of this clan.
The oldest sister and her four daughters span the

family room. From an altar, a bronze Buddha
and framed photos of their dead look down,

taking it all in. He's the center-stage as they
would strip him if his shorts weren't off already.

You may have heard of Asian women being
demure, passive. No, not the girls and the women

in this clan. They're the first to jump at him,
take his boyish member in their hands, slowly

stroke until he grows hard. They'd laugh their
hearty laughter while one of the sisters commences

to squeeze the first drops of his pre-cum with
one hand, cupping beneath it with the other.

~ ~ ~

He's merely the oddity they toy with whenever
they are horny—meaning he's never left

alone long in the attic. Except for these times,
he isn't allowed to come down at all. However

whenever it rains, they'd come to fetch him.
Both good times and bad when it starts to pour.

It isn't a beneficent act when they free him—
they long to see more and more five- to ten-year

-olds' penises from the neighborhood. Reel 'em
in, boy! Boy-toy, boy-bait! And there it goes

again: Hardi Har Har. A seemingly innocent story
of rainy days in Da Nang suddenly intermixed with

raucous Vietnamese laughter and little boy's
semen. How often does this scene get played

and re-played? As many times as rain soaks
the rice paddies of this lawless land. As many

times as he learns to endure this scene, as he learns
now how to do/undo what was done/undone to him.